Custom gradient stroke

A work around:

Type text (bold with plenty of space between letters and fill with desired solid color

Make a copy

Turn view off of top copy

select bottom copy

Text>Convert to Paths

Modify>Ungroup

Modify>Alter Path>Inset Path

select Outside

Width will depend on text size so experiment. I used Arial Black size 64 so my width was 4. I left miter at 10

Fill expanded text with gradient

Turn on top text

A gradient you can't change isn't very useful, is it. Odd.

Well, I managed something much more complicated, but it will allow you to create a color gradient even if you want bold text.

It's a Fireworks .png, so you can copy it and open it up. Layer 2 is the visible result; Layer 1 has copies of the components so you can see them individually.

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Start with three copies of the word "Text." The green one does not have the Photoshop Live Effects gradient stroke. For the other two, one has white text and one has black text. Make sure to copy and then not move any of the text elements. Turn off their visibility for working, because you need them to stay aligned.

For the one with black text, the gradient stroke is white on top. If we use this for a mask, we can create the gradient fade where the object is white, going to transparent where the object is black. I layered this over a blue rectangle then used the text object as a mask. (Select black text object with stroke and blue rectangle, then menu Modify > Mask > Group as Mask.) This gives me a fading blue outline at the top of the text.

To make a mask for the lower part of the gradient, we need that to be white, but it's black. Take the text object with the white text and invert it with menu Filters > Adjust Color > Invert. This will create a bitmap from the vector object, but it will work just fine. I took this bitmap and used it as a mask for a red rectangle. This gives me a fading red outline at the bottom of the text.

Pretty complex, but it gets the effect on bold text as well as any other shape you might apply the filter to.

Hmm. A fading blue outline over a straight red outline would probably work too! Just thought of that.

Yeah. Much easier.

Make a rectangle with whatever wild gradient you'd like. Make two copies of your text element (or other object). Make the lower text element black and apply a white stroke to it. Use the lower object as a mask for the rectangle with the gradient:

Hmm. A white text element would help with the haloing I see around the dark grey text. Make that a white text element with a white stroke.

Did you try the steps I suggested? Much less complicated and same result :-)